Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process monitoring system and method.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2012-137760, filed Jun. 19, 2012, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
Description of the Related Art
All patents, patent applications, patent publications, scientific articles, and the like, which will hereinafter be cited or identified in the present application, will hereby be incorporated by reference in their entirety in order to describe more fully the state of the art to which the present invention pertains.
Conventionally, in plants, factories, and the like, process monitoring systems are implemented which monitor various state quantities such as pressure, temperature, and flow amount in an industrial process, with advanced automated operation implemented, based on the monitoring results of the processing monitoring system. A process monitoring system is generally constituted by on-site devices such as measuring instruments and actuators, which are called field devices, a controller that controls them, and a processing monitoring apparatus that monitors state quantities.
The process monitoring apparatus collects information indicating various state quantities, which are the measurement results of field device that are acquired by the controller. The process monitoring apparatus displays the current values of state quantities measured by one or a plurality of field devices, and trend graphs, which are graphs of the time variation of state quantities measured by specific field devices. The process monitoring apparatus displays, along with the current values of state quantities and trend graphs, the upper thresholds and lower thresholds of state quantities, and issues an alarm to notify of an abnormality when a state quantity exceeds a threshold. A plant operator refers to the content displayed on the process monitoring apparatus to understand the state of the process and operates the process monitoring apparatus as required.
Japanese Examined Patent Application, Second Publication No. H6-60826, Japanese Patent (Granted) Publication Nos. 3012297 and 3631118, and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2007-11686 disclose conventional art for diagnosis and the like of abnormalities occurring in a plant or the like. Specifically, Japanese Examined Patent Application, Second Publication No. H6-60826, and Japanese Patent (Granted) Publication Nos. 3012297 and 3631118 disclose art that uses simulation and a neural network to identify an abnormality. Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2007-11686 discloses art whereby time-sequence data during plant operation and information regarding plant operation are associated and stored in a storage unit, and whereby specific time-sequence data resembling time-sequence data based on the current plant operation is selected from the time-sequence data stored in the storage unit, and the information associated with the selected specific time-sequence data is acquired.
In recent years, efforts are being made to digitalize and impart intelligence to the above-described field devices, and it has become possible to collect a large amount of diverse information from field devices. With the ability to collect such a large amount of diverse information, because the amount of information required for process control becomes large, the possibility of implementing process control that is more accurate and more efficient than conventionally possible is envisioned. When the collected information becomes diverse and increases in quantity, along with an increase in the number of items to be monitored by plant operators, the scope of the monitoring broadens, as does the burden on operators.
To achieve process control that is both accurate and efficient, it is necessary to grasp fine variations in state quantities as quickly as possible. In order to improve the overall production efficiency in a plant or the like, it is insufficient to only control so as to achieve the optimum state in a part of the process steps, and it is necessary to implement high-level control that considers the states in upstream and downstream process steps relative to a process step. Conventionally, because an operator referred to the current values and trend graphs of state quantities to judge the state of the plant, unless the operator is sufficiently experienced, fine variations in state quantities are overlooked, making it difficult to achieve a highly efficient process.
If the art disclosed in Japanese Examined Patent Application, Second Publication No. H6-60826, Japanese Patent (Granted) Publication Nos. 3012297 and 3631118, and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2007-11686 is used, an operator not having a high level of experience can be aided to some extent. However, because an operator must make the ultimate judgment of the state of the plant, the achievement of a high-efficiency process still requires an operator with a high level of experience. Additionally, in a situation in which the information obtained from field devices becomes diverse and increases in quantity, the burden on even a highly experienced operator increases, bringing conventional monitoring methods close to their limit.